


0161 Lips close the gap – The Livestream mishap of WillNE

by emmastrenchcoat



Category: British YouTube - Fandom, Stephen Tries, Video Blogging RPF, WillNE, xo (not The Weeknd)
Genre: British Slang, Confession thing?, I Will Go Down With This Ship, M/M, SteNE, is that what we're calling it?, kind of, livestream, look this is gay, nobody asked for this, younow
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-05-13
Updated: 2018-05-13
Packaged: 2019-05-06 06:30:35
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 2
Words: 2,220
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/14636025
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/emmastrenchcoat/pseuds/emmastrenchcoat
Summary: Will decides to livestream. Stephen joins in as per audience demand.It all plays well until some questions turn the whole situation upside down.It's very awkward and I'm very sorry about it.This is dedicated to "buster + black", who left some very nice comments on another fic (and to them: I'm so sorry, this is as good as I could make it).





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

> Cringe warning there's a 0161 joke

“Stephen!” Will yelled across the room. “I won’t get any proper content out of this unless you join, they’re asking for nothing but you”. Will smiled at someone just behind the camera, his eyes lighting up, cheeks turning ever so slightly red, probably forgetting that the screenshot feature existed. 

Any viewer who just tuned in to WillNE’s livestream would probably need a little bit of context.

You see, Will was not one for livestreaming himself. He had mentioned in a previous video that he did not work well under pressure, and thus he felt that his content quality dropped massively when his performance was unedited and unprepared. 

However, his fans had been asking constantly, and he thought to himself that they might actually like who he was as a person, completely raw and unfiltered. So, Will Lenney decided to announce a livestream on YouNow for one Saturday evening. The only problem?

He forgot Stephen was coming over. 

Will didn’t want to change the date; he was flying to Ibiza the next week, and did not fancy leaving his fans hanging, either. So what was the harm in just streaming with Stephen in the house? 

The answer to this proved to be the fans- of course- finding out, and asking for him to appear as well. 

So here we was, on his sofa, laptop on a table in front of him, with Stephen just behind the camera. Will directed his attention towards him, shifting to one side and patting the now empty space of sofa in shot next to him. 

“You’ve got me in a corner here!” Stephen exclaimed, acting annoyed. He wasn’t, but this was something new to him, too. Maybe experiencing it with Will for the first time was not such a bad idea. The train of thought may have turned into something other than first time livestreams with Will, per se, though he managed to revert his attention back to the camera in front of him. 

He smiled, looking at Will for moral support. 

You’d think a comedian wouldn’t hesitate to go for improvised public appearances, but every joke- especially in stand up comedy- had to be planned out. Stephen liked it that way. 

“You won”, Will smiled, beginning to read the messages popping up on the side, “So what do you want of Stephen, exactly?”  
“What’s your favourite thing about Will”, Will read aloud- it was the first message he saw, he told himself. No way he was genuinely curious as to why Stephen chose to hang out with him so frequently, over someone he has much easier access to, like Max or Tom. 

He turned towards the ginger boy, giving him his full attention. 

“Well”, Stephen began, “I think he’s just incredibly talented, you know? He’s another type of funny, and I think that really compliments other types of comedy, comedy we see so much here on YouTube…” 

Stephen didn’t trail off, but to Will’s ears he did. He blushed, clearly flattered by such high praise from Stephen. A smile crept onto his face, and he felt flustered and slightly queasy. Had he just gone back to Year 7? It wasn’t even a girl, he thought; he was solely attracted to girls. At least that’s what he tried to make of his very friendly friendships with some boys during his lifetime. 

Soon enough Stephen had actually stopped talking, and was now looking at him, one eyebrow raised?

“Earth to Will, planet Earth checking in”, he joked, poking Will with one finger, the latter shaking his head and apologising for zoning out. 

“Yea, uh, sorry mate. What was the question?” 

“What about your favourite thing about me?” Stephen replied (or rather, repeated). 

Will blushed profusely as he tried to come up with the most platonic answer possible. He ended up saying something about originality and personality. 

“Stephen’s got true humour. He can cheer you up in any situation”, he finished his admittedly awkward answer. Stealing the slightest of glances at Stephen, he could have sworn he saw an awkward shift. 

The questions continued for a while, and after half an hour of total livestreaming, both boys were slightly tired. 

“Alright, one more question. What about one that you can ask both of us?” Will prompted his audience of a fair bit more than a few thousand. 

“Do you support LGBT+ rights?” Stephen read off the first one that he saw. Sure, Will thought. It was a simple enough question. He just didn’t want to get caught up in anything...dodgy. 

“Of course I do”, Will said immediately, then looking to Stephen, who started his answer with, “I mean you are…” then catching himself on time. They stared at each other for a split second, before Stephen continued “a PG clean family friendly content channel, aren’t you, Will?” The latter sighed a tiny sigh of relief.  
That was close, he thought. Better change the speaker. What could possibly go wrong?

“What about you, Stephen?” 

He expected a short “of course” or “how could I not” from his mate, but was a little taken aback when the answer was more heartfelt. 

“I do, yes. I think that if you’ve had a history with a topic like this, it’s important to be open about your support for it. I never thought I’d have such a big reach and so many people watching my content. Even if those of you who are here right now is just a fraction, I need to make sure that everyone knows that my channel is a safe space, and any jokes that I make are purely for comedic value and not to seriously poke fun at anything. I like to think that my jokes are a way to lighten up the mood around themes that can be quite depressing at times”. 

Will let out an involuntary “aw”, and everything went silent for a minute. Neither of the boys looked at the chat. 

“That was wonderful, Ste”, Will said quietly, placing a hand on Stephen’s thigh, which was just out of shot. 

Realising that this was his livestream and he should keep up an active interaction with his audience, Will redirected his eyes to the chat. This may have proven to be slightly difficult, as Stephen was entirely quiet, his face reddening. 

A plethora of messages about some weird combination of their name pooled in the chat, Will frowning, and Stephen smiling awkwardly. 

“What’s this?”, the ginger boy finally managed to ask, “SteNE? That some sort of new drug?” He joked. Feeling tempted to recycle his “01sniff1” joke from a previous video to return to his usual, humorous self, he didn’t get a chance, as Will turned towards him and half-murmured, “Stephen, I think that’s a ship name”. 

At this he turned quiet. Will didn’t want to take his eyes off of him, his hand still firmly resting on Stephen’s lap. He didn’t want to see what kinds of things everyone was typing now that they were staring at each other.


	2. Chapter 2

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Feel free to comment your opinions! Constructive and positive feedback equally appreciated. :)

“Right, okay, so ending this on a slightly awkward note”- Will forced a laugh- “seeing as it has been an hour, I think we’ll end this here, and we’ll see you next time!” He was so out of it that he had forgotten to ask of them to “Sub2WillNE” and to the ginger nonce next to him. 

“How do I turn this bloody thing off?” he asked himself more than anyone else. This was the downside of doing something for the first time. 

He turned to Stephen. 

“Any ideas?” Stephen chuckled at that question, responding, “No, but isn’t it horrible that we’re YouTubers who can’t even find a basic function on a streaming website?”

Stephen’s laugh, which also made Will’s heart flutter, was contagious. The boys were still smiling as Will was trying to turn it off. He pressed a button. Suddenly they no longer heard little noises indicating that someone had sent a message to the chat; in fact, upon checking, it had disappeared entirely. 

“I think that was it”, Will breathed, sadness hitting him as he realised Stephen would get up and leave now. It was, after all, a pretty horrid experience. He did want to inquire about that last question, though. It was intriguing, and he figured that he only had one chance. 

“Stephen, I”, his voice fading into nothingness. How in the world was he even going to ask this?

“I’m sorry if I made that awkward”, Stephen whispered, averting his eyes. 

“No! No, that’s not what I was going to say, I just…” 

This was going to be his only chance, Will thought. Might as well ask it now.

“I wanted to ask you, what did you mean when you said you had a history with the topic?” 

Will was now the one looking away, and he heard Stephen’s even breaths palpitate for a moment, before he quietly replied, “I once said I was never bullied. That’s only half true. Being a chubby ginger kid was never an issue for the bullies at my school. Being gay, though. That was something you didn’t want to be as a schoolboy in that area.”

He looked up at Will, pained. 

“But how could I have changed that about myself?” 

Will furrowed his brows, feeling an overwhelming sense of sadness and empathy for Stephen. 

“I’m sorry”, the ginger boy breathed. 

He looked down at his fidgeting hands, clearly embarrassed. 

Will, on the other hand, was trying to catch his eye contact, unable to rid himself of the sheer amount of emotion he was feeling. He couldn’t sort it into any category, but there was one thing he knew for sure. He cared about Stephen. 

Will took a deep breath and tried to focus, on himself, on Stephen, on the situation. His mind then all of a sudden kicked right back into his very own primary school years, and endless teasing on the playground. He heard the girls shouting towards each other, “You fancy him, you fancy him!” Then it was the boys, shouting the same thing at each other, too. His whole world was spinning around his as the voices drowned him out. He was trying to see their faces, but his memory was blurry. He couldn’t touch any of them, they were merely a figment of his imagination, yet so much realer than anything else that he’d ever experienced. 

Overcome with the sound and sight of these schoolchildren, he knew that there was one boy he wasn’t looking at. 

So Will did the only thing that his body would let him do; he turned towards Stephen once more, leaning in. He tilted the younger boy’s chin up gingerly, and relished a long look into those gorgeous eyes. He bit his lip as his own eyes flitted back and forth between the other’s and his lips, red and flushed like his rosy cheeks. 

Will let his thoughts stream through his mind, no longer forcing himself to hold anything back as for one moment he let himself be free. He let himself love the man in front of him. He seized this moment, and sealed it with a slow, passionate kiss. As he pulled away, his eyes were closed. 

He didn’t want to be blinded by the harsh light of reality. 

Reality was, in his mind, that he would receive a slap to the face and the end of a friendship. 

It was his recommence of suppression. Oppression, rather. He was going to continue holding half of himself at the status of unholy. 

In the middle of his thoughts writhing like a parasite through his brain, his lips were met again. 

Stephen had leaned in for another kiss, one much like the former. They broke apart, took a breath, and repeated. Neither of the boys opened their eyes until their kisses grew more heated, and they had a mutual idea of a location change. 

Just as Will moved his hands to close his laptop, he cocked his head to the side. The light next to his webcam was blinking. 

Any blood left in his face was barely enough to operate his eyes as he found a small banner in the corner of his screen.

“Currently streaming”

Stephen had clocked as well, and both boys stared at each other once again, though with a much different emotion. 

Will inspected his clicking options more closely, discovering that he had only, in fact, turned off chat notifications. This theory proved right when he clicked the button again and the sidebar was flooded with fans freaking out. He scrolled up and found a variety of hastily typed comments about every second of the previous five minutes. 

He looked over at Stephen, who was actually beginning to crack a smile. Will couldn’t understand why. He thought he’d be angry. 

“I swear that was an accident”, he said to Stephen, who didn’t reply, but pointed at a particular comment. 

It read, “lips close the gap” with more than several exclamation marks, and in all caps of course. 

Stephen then motioned to another button that actually clearly read “End livestream”, and giggled. 

Will felt a compelling need to facepalm.

Returning to the mysteriously intriguing comment, Stephen read it out loud.

Will was confused until he added to it. 

Stephen smiled, then announced to the chat. 

“0161” 

He turned off the livestream.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Does anybody want a smut chapter after this? 
> 
> I'd be happy to add but don't want to ruin the story if nobody wants it. 
> 
> Do comment and I hope you enjoyed this fic :D


End file.
